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User blog:Tojoro/Reportage: Just Who Do I Think I Am?!
UPDATE: 4/26/12 I figured I had to get around to this sooner or later...I hail from New England and have lived here for the majority of the fourty-four years I have walked the skin of this earth. Yep, you read that right... Plain and simple, I am a child of the 70's, born in '67...I watched Creature Double Feature on Saturday afternoons, I read Famous Monsters magazine, built the models, bought the bubblegum cards and the beat goes on. I was one of the lucky ducks that got to see the infamous "Force Five" cartoons each weekday after school. (These were the cartoons made by Toei Animation that were repackaged by Jim Terry for US consumption). These mid 70's Super-Robot Anime are what our buddy V is a direct descendant of. I never really owned a gaming console until a mutual buddy hooked up me and my lady with a PS2 back in the Fall of '01. "Oh great", I thought..."this'll be collecting dust soon enough." Wrong. Got hooked from the get-go, most of my choices lean toward the stuff developed by the likes of Naughty Dog, Insomniac and Sucker Punch, but, I got a dark twist to me as well, (cripes...don't we all?), and I came across a game that caught my eye: psychotic clown with head on fire...what's this all about? Car combat? Hmmmm... The gap in my gaming experience goes from Atari circa 1982, directly to the PS2 in '01. (You read that right, too!) I spent a lot of time with TM:B after that. At this point, I was subscribing to both PS2 mags here in the US, (PSM & OPM), and naturally, I was always on the lookout for what was up and coming. When I saw the preview announcing that a game was in development that would harken back to the monster movies of the Atom Age, and Incog was driving that train? The 11-year-old that lurks within me went: "Woah!". The game certainly didn't dissapoint. I love everything about it...the design of the characters, the dynamic cut scenes, ominous bosses. I'm a big fan of film scores, and they knocked it out of the park with the battle tunes for sure. I had a great time playing thru as each character, truly enjoying each monsters abilities, kicking butt and wreaking havoc hither and yon. I have always appreciated fantasy art, especially when it leans to the horror/sci-fi side and whenever I saw the pages of concept art being flipped thru during the credit crawl clip, all I could think was: "Where can I buy THAT book??!!) I have never been someone who is all about image, but in my opinion, the cover art used for the Japenese release could have helped sales immensely in N. America & Europe.. The art used wasn't bad, it was just wrong for a cover...again, my opinion. This was a post holiday release...no one is looking that hard in Feburary, you need something that is going to catch their eye, and this certainly fit the bill: My only other gripe about the game would be the mini games. How lazy was that particualr team? Were they raised in a dungeon? There was so much innovation in this game...the levels were varied and nearly totally interactive, characters like Magmo and Kineticlops were some great original ideas that worked wonderfully. The team that did the mini games did a decent job with Big Shot, but, Dodgeball might have fared better amid a different enviornment. It almost appears we're playing in Vegon's crater, after the crews came in to clear away the slag. The less said about Crush, the better. Something else I noticed: Why does Century Airfield have to share the same music as Midtown, (two levels in adventure mode, mind you.), when Mini Baytown gets it's own score? Nothing wrong with it...just odd, like someone mixed them up. Not sure what the hustle was...maybe they needed folks to get going on God of War, but this wonderful game may have been a much bigger deal, had Incog chose to wait another nine months, Take their time and do it right. I've said it before, but I liken this game to Jan Brady, as the TM series is older and popular, like Marcia, while Kratos is younger and prettier, like Cindy. I have no idea what the numbers arrived at, but WotM never sold enough to warrant it as a "Greatest Hits". Our boys were left to die on the vine...puzzling, as Kaiju is pretty popular here, or so I thought. ...but it was not to be, for it would be the mutated freaks that would shamble forth from the toxic wastelands, and hold this game to a much higher standard than popularity...Cult status. What it all boils down to is this: I love the game, it's a visual feast right in front of your naked, steaming eyes, and seriously...who wouldn't want to embody a hundred-foot monster and deconstruct a city? It's like candy, I tells ya!! I wish, at the very least, that they would allow this game as a download from PSN, it would be doubly awesome if they put the files of ALL of the game images in said download. Of course, I'd love a sequel, but methinks they wouldn't revisit what was a failure in their eyes, which is too bad...the technology on the PS3 absolutely screams for a reboot! I'm havin' fun and I hope you are too...my only request is that you guys make yourselves known. Say hey, tell us what you like/don't like...what you'd like to see, how the weather is in your neck of the woods...I dunno... I just work here:D ~T. EDIT: It was cool PSN finally made this great game available for download, though at the time of this edit, (Jan '13), it appears the fans in the UK are still waiting to play WotM on the PS3...they got TM:B instead. Category:Blog posts